


Fulgurant Faith

by yusukewritesangst



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Past Rape/Non-con, Underage Rape/Non-con, i was tired when finishing this up so if it isn't any good..., that should be all of em, then you know why i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 03:09:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20075143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yusukewritesangst/pseuds/yusukewritesangst
Summary: Ichigo never was one for excessive crying after he sealed himself off from the world upon his mother's death, but in this situation, maybe a cursed circumstance can turn out to be a blessed happenstance...After they escaped being kidnapped from this witch, though.





	Fulgurant Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, here's another Bleach fic that I finished when going through all the archives of unfinished drabbles in my Google Docs... hope y'all like it!

Who knew witches existed? Apparently, none of the Shinigami. And neither did Ichigo.

However, as they were currently kidnapped and tied up by one, he certainly did believe in them _ now. _

“Sorry,” the witch in front of them apologized as if she had no other choice. “I just need one thing, I’ll let you all go after that.”

“And what is it that you want?” Ichigo rolled his eyes, taking the initiative when it looked like nobody was going to respond. The witch looked at him with a sheepish grin.

“I, uh…” she started slowly, then seemingly gathered up her courage, “need some of your tears!”

She bowed towards Ichigo, not looking up at his shocked face. The rest of the Shinigami looked between the two of them, also confused.

“What d’you mean?” Renji barked out.

“He’s the strongest witch I know in the area!” she explained hurriedly.

Ichigo’s mind stuttered to a halt as he blinked at the witch in front of him. “What.”

“Well, the fact that you associate with the Shinigami and  _ look _ like a Shinigami yourself means that you probably weren’t informed, which is a  _ huge _ misstep on the Council’s part, but if you would come with me later or I could tell you where the Council’s usual haunts are we can clear up the misunderstanding and get you some information on your powers and how they work an—”

“How would I even be a witch anyway?” Ichigo interrupted the tangent the other witch had gone on.

“Uh,” the girl articulated very intelligently.

Ichigo just firmed his scowl as everyone else stared at her questioningly as well.

“I’m… not sure you want everyone else to hear this,” she explained quietly. “It’s… to do with… something that was unwillingly taken.”

Ichigo cocked his head in confusion before his eyes widened and his breath sucked in involuntarily as he shivered. “Oh,” he whispered, understanding.

She nodded. “Yeah. And for you to be this strong…” she trailed off, knowing just how bad it was for him.

“What d’you mean by all of that!” Renji exploded, close to tearing his hair out in confusion. Or their faces off. “And Ichigo, how do you understand? What does she mean!”

“Ichigo…” Rukia stared at him with wide-eyes, tears starting to well up in them. “What was forcefully taken… was it…?”

Ichigo winced, then shrugged as he let his face fall back into its normal scowl. He decided to treat it like a band-aid—rip it off quickly, and it’ll be over with soon. “I was raped when I was eleven.”

Silence fell across the room as everyone digested it. The witch lowered her head in sorrow for she knew that it had to happen for the teen to be a witch, but hearing it still hurt every time.

“Who?”

Surprisingly, it was Byakuya who asked, his sharp eyes looking like they were trying to pry all of Ichigo’s secrets from his soul.

Ichigo shrugged again. “They’re still serving their terms,” he waved it off, trying to act like it didn’t bother him anymore. “I went to therapy for it anyway.”

He still did, when the nightmares and trauma got particularly bad.

“ _ They? _ ” Shunsui asked shrewdly, emotions indiscernible in his eyes.

Ichigo tilted his head away even as his scowl deepened, his shoulders hitching up slightly in defense. “Yeah,” he muttered. “There were four of them.”

There were quite a few sharp inhales once he said that, but Ichigo didn’t dare look over at the others. He didn’t want to see how they would look at him—the pity, horror, sadness, tears, maybe even some disgust. Whether the last one would be directed at him or his rapists… well, he could only hope it would be the latter. It would suck if Soul Society was  _ so _ backwards to be stuck in the time period where rape was the  _ victim’s  _ fault, not the  _ culprit’s _ .

Ichigo just hunched slightly over himself as he fiddled with the small threads of energy that was wrapped around several of his body parts to keep him trapped there: his wrists, his ankles, his waist, his shoulders, and his neck. They were currently loose, but he had no doubt that they would tighten if he decided to try anything the witch didn’t want him to. Not that she seemed cruel enough to cut off his air for long enough to harm him, but… looks could be deceiving.

“If you ever need to talk with someone…” Unohana offered kindly, causing Ichigo to look over at her. He just shrugged again, straightening up a little and leaning against the wall as he continued playing with the loose string tying him up.

“I can just speak to my therapist then,” he responded easily, not seeing the need to have to spill  _ all _ of his secrets in a form of barfed-up emotion to the Shinigami. They didn’t have to know  _ everything  _ about him, after all, no matter how anal they were about this shit. “It’s definitely gotten better over the years, so it’s obviously working.”

Plus, even though the nice-though-scary taichō had offered out of the goodness of her heart—maybe—Ichigo didn’t want to burden her with this problem. Some things were better left unshared.

After a few minutes of awkward silence where Ichigo returned to fiddling with the string and refusing to look at any of the Shinigami, the witch spoke up again.

“Well, uh…” she trailed off, fidgeting with the ends of her sleeves, “the sooner you cry, the sooner I can let you all go?”

“I… don’t remember how to cry,” Ichigo explained shortly, a bit embarrassed from all the attention on him.

“You  _ what, _ ” the witch deadpanned, tone flat in disbelief as everyone stared blankly at the Substitute Shinigami on the floor.

He shrugged defensively, angling his head away as he responded. “I haven’t cried since I was nine.”

Since his mother had died.

“Then, uh… think about something that makes you sad!” the witch proposed after flailing around for an answer for a few moments. “Y’know, uh, your family getting hurt! Someone’s death! A betrayal! Reaching out to grab the last pancake but then your friend beat you to it and eats it tauntingly slow right in front of your face!”

Ichigo stared blankly at her, even as he heard a few noises of confusion from the other side of the room. The witch shrugged and huffed, wringing the end of her sleeves as he still stared in disbelief of that statement.

“What?” she asked defensively. “That kind of stuff is truly heartbreaking!”

Ichigo fought to keep the smile off his face as he scoffed. “An emotional attachment to food, huh?”

“I was hungry that time!” the witch pouted as she slumped against the wall opposite to the teen. “It’s not  _ my _ fault that my friend was being an asshole! He even  _ licked _ it to claim it as his before eating it piece by piece in front of me!”

“Those are the rules,” he responded, his lips twitching in amusement as the witch just pouted and sulked even more. “You snooze, you lose.”

Ichigo knew he was acting weirdly, being all friendly and interacting with the one who kidnapped them, but he was in a weird headspace after revealing to the Shinigami the… event that took place years ago. They were seemingly taking it fine, but he still had some paranoia about how they would act towards him in the future—whether they would think that he was too  _ weak _ to let that happen to him, and would try and shelter him too much. But he knew that keeping information from others could kill them potentially—both on his half what with something possibly triggering him in a fight, and on their half where if they refuse to tell him anything about the upcoming war, they could lose one of their allies…

But there was also this… thing around the witch, which should put him on guard, but instead made him relax a little. He shouldn’t trust her—and he didn’t really—but he didn’t hate her. It was… it stripped away the negative feelings he had towards her for kidnapping them, leaving him a blank slate to create feelings based on other interactions he would have with her.

Which made him feel weird.

Well, he just had to cry, right? Then he could get away from her weirdness.

So he closed his eyes and settled down, listing things that might make him cry. His cat dying when he was younger… a little bit of sadness, but he was mostly happy with all of those memories to look back on. Not enough to cry. People trying to bully his sisters… nope, no sadness there, just complete and utter murderous rage. He had dealt with anyone who said  _ anything _ cruel about his sisters very quickly. Losing all those matches to Tatsuki… eh, that was just sad to his childish self. He mostly felt like laughing at how often he failed. His mother dying…

Guilt drowned him, followed quickly by anger shoving it to the side and building, fanning its own flame as he continued to think about it. That  _ fucking _ Hollow who killed her—no matter that it was dead now—had a very,  _ very  _ special place in his heart:  _ Hell. _ The guilt never truly dissipated, always lurking behind the anger, which only fed the flames more as he just become angrier at himself for not stopping, for not  _ thinking _ for even  _ one  _ second—

_ Crack! _

Ichigo started at the string of energy he had been mangling with his hands, unaware of when he had opened his eyes. The string had thickened and stiffened, forming more of a stick in the area he was holding. It was snapped clean in half, the thicker part already flaking off and disappearing into the air.

He just blinked at it slowly. Maybe he got a little  _ too  _ into his own thoughts there that he forgot his strength… and awareness of the world around him.

“Oops?” he offered sheepishly, letting the now-mended string fall back to the floor as he looked up at everyone. “Uh, guess I shouldn’t venture into that idea again?”

He rolled his shoulders and wrists to get rid of some of the tension there, causing the string to slack from its tightness almost cutting off his circulation. The ones on his ankles did so without prompting, and thankfully the one around his neck never tightened. Luckily the witch wasn’t  _ that _ cruel. At least, not  _ yet. _

So he sighed and settled down to think about something else.

After just sitting there for a while, trying to get the waterworks running, Ichigo got even more frustrated. “Just grab an onion or something!” he snapped, close to tearing out his hair as everyone watched him.

“I can’t,” the witch responded apologetically. “It has to be real tears...”

“Well, do you have any ideas?” Ichigo asked dryly, attempting to keep the sarcasm out of his tone, but inevitably failing.

“What if you… think about the… r-rape?” the witch suggested hesitantly, already drawing back further into the shadows even as she asked.

“What the Hell!”

“You can’t ask him to do that!”

“That’s extremely disrespectful.”

Even as the others protested vehemently, Ichigo gave it some actual thought. Then he settled down and let his mind wander back to that night, even through the commotion of practically everyone basically reprimanding the poor girl.

He recalled being stalked, kidnapped, and tied up in a bed. How four men had come in and showed him their board full of pictures of him, complete with schedules and notes about him as well. There were many pictures, but most of them were him asleep, changing, or… being a normal pre-teen. How they were so proud of their hard work and forced him to reward them, taking him over and over again in many different ways. How they took  _ all _ of his firsts: first kiss, first giving and receiving a blowjob, first giving and receiving penetration, first… all of it.

Well,  _ almost  _ all of it. They were not his first love, nor his first date, nor his first marriage, nor his first child, nor his first break-up…

But they were his first rape. And hopefully his last.

(He would sooner  _ die _ than experience that again. Though… now he knows that there is technically a life after death. And, well, it wouldn’t be  _ too _ bad. But still, even back then, before knowing that Shinigami were real and Soul Society existed…

He would’ve rather slit his own throat than go through that again.)

He remembered blacking out halfway through the experience—really, his only saving grace from it—and waking up in the hospital, so doped up on drugs that he didn’t understand what was going on. He just remembered pain and confusion, hazy images of white and blue.

It had been a tough fight once he was finally coherent, but his sisters and father helped him through it a lot. The visits with the therapist kept him going through the day, but at night, curling up surrounded by family kept him from doing something he knew he’d regret.

Ichigo opened his eyes and sighed. “I’ve grown both numb and just accepting of what happened that night,” he quieting the argument easily, causing everyone to look at him. “Tried to cry, didn’t work. It’s… it’s more in the past, now.” He shrugged apologetically at the witch, who just smiled thankfully in turn.

“It’s for the best that you’ve healed from it,” the witch nodded. “Holding onto it would just hurt you, especially since that incident is directly connected to the birth of your witchiness.”

Ichigo snorted in amusement. Witchiness? “Sounds fun,” he retorted dryly.

“Oh, yeah,  _ totally, _ ” she drawled sarcastically in return. “We sit in a circle tossing poor, innocent animals into pots as we dance around naked while laughing hysterically. Blood is  _ really  _ hard to get out of clothes—it’s  _ much _ easier to wash off our bodies.”

“Oh no,” Ichigo deadpanned. “Someone tell Arthur Miller that the Crucible is real.”

“If it is, then I call Abby,” the witch announced as she stepped back into the light instead of the shadows she had drawn back into.

“Well, there’s no  _ way _ I’m gonna be  _ Proctor, _ ” Ichigo rolled his eyes. “The dude does  _ way _ too little too late!”

“You have the scowl down pat though,” she teased him with a small smirk.

“Hey—”

“What are you two talking about?” Rukia interrupted them, drawing their attention to the fact that they were not alone. Whoops.

“A play,” Ichigo shrugged. “By an American playwright.”

“I didn’t know that you read those things,” Shunsui commented, looking curiously at the teen. “Nor that you knew English to that extent.”

“English is partially due to school, and partially to personal study,” he admitted sheepishly, knowing that a lot of them thought he was all brawn and no brains. “Reading Shakespeare has always been a hobby of mine, so I decided to branch out into several different plays as well.”

The… room… cave? Whatever it was descended back into silence as the conversation was apparently deemed over with that answer. The silence was evidently too stifling for Renji, who sparked up a quiet, yet heated discussion with Rukia over something. Some of the other Shinigami got drawn into the debate, but the older ones kept watch on the witch and over Ichigo, who was slightly separated from all of them by a few feet.

Ichigo sighed as he settled down to try and get them out once more. He slowed his breathing and closed his eyes, ignoring the voices that faded into the background slowly and the eyes watching him… and he breathed. In, and out… in, and out…

He let his mind drift back to his mother’s death. Grief immediately clouded his mind, but the anger swiftly overtook it, burying the grief and sadness and loss under it… he took another slow breath and grabbed his anger and wrestled it under control, letting his sadness become the emotion that accompanied that memory. How it had been raining, but he was happily skipping along with his mother… how he had stopped and saw the little girl—who he now knew was a Hollow in disguise—and ran towards her, already growing a hero complex at that young age. How his mother rushed to save him, how she was  _ killed _ by that Hollow…

How the next time he was aware of his surroundings, his mother’s body trapping his small frame, covering him and splashing blood across him and leaving him  _ cold _ and  _ alone _ and—

“You can stop crying now,” the witch whispered, hushed and watching him with wide eyes.

Ichigo hiccuped as he leaned against the wall, drawing himself smaller. He hadn’t even realized the tears streaming down his face, his breathing hitching quietly as he barely made a sound through his crying. His hands fisted the fabric of his shihakusho as he curled into himself even more. Trying to stop the tears just caused them to fall even more, and he felt cold from being on the ground, reminding him of the weight of his mother’s body pressed on his own, and the coldness her body had exuded when the life had escaped her—

“F-uck!” Ichigo hiccuped, cursing as he hid his face in his arms, not daring to look at his audience. “This is wh-y I fucking ha-ate cryin-g!”

He backed up into the corner furthest away from everyone, hoping they would just leave him alone to cry everything out. The witch quietly let everyone out of their bondages and left, leaving the door open behind her, but Ichigo took no notice of that. He was shivering and curled up in the corner, wrapping his arms around his legs as he muffled his sobs into his knees, an amalgamation of emotions swirling through his mind.

Sadness at the death of his mother. Frustration at not being able to stop crying—which only made him cry more out of frustration. Anger at himself for not having enough control, which bled into his frustration.

He tried to breathe, but with the hiccups interrupting practically every breath he took along with the sobs making them too shaky to even get enough oxygen, it was a losing battle. He was tired of crying, tired of not being able to breathe, tired of his eyes stinging and chest burning, and just  _ tired _ of this whole damn thing.

As warm arms pulled him against an equally warm body, all he could do was hiccup, close his eyes, and bury his face into the soft material of the clothing, hands coming up to clench it as well. A hand soothingly rubbed his back as he listened to the breathing of the person under him, trying to emulate it even through his shuddering breaths and stifled sobs.

They sat there for what seemed like forever, even as Ichigo started to calm down. The tears dried as his breathing slowed down, still hitched with hiccups and shaky breaths, but much better than the full-blown panic it was earlier. He didn’t care about the wet fabric that his face was shoved in, or that he couldn’t breathe from his nose due to how clogged up it was from all the crying. It didn’t matter that he was shivering, unsure if he was too cold or too hot. He was surrounded by warmth, comfort, and most of all,  _ safety. _

A yawn escaped his mouth as he leaned limply against the body holding him, hearing the soothing noises that he hadn’t really taken notice of earlier stop. He let out a small noise of confusion as a hand brushed his hair back, and another cold one was held to his forehead for a moment, causing the shivers to cease as the coolness calmed him further, combined with the warmth around him. But there were already two hands on him, one rubbing his back and the other at his side, holding him. One person didn’t generally have four hands, so why were there four touching him now?

“Is he going to be okay?” a female voice asked quietly from the side, the hand in his hair still for a moment before continuing after the question was asked. The voice sounded familiar, and he vaguely recognized it as Rukia even through his muddled mind. Another yawn left his mouth as he relaxed under the soothing attention on him.

“He just exhausted himself,” the chest under him vibrated as another person responded. His mind matched the voice with Shunsui’s tiredly. Ichigo grumbled as he was shifted due to the small movement, but settled down again quickly, snuggling further into the warmth with no shame. He was tired, dammit, and he had just cried his soul out, he was going to do whatever he damn well wanted.

“Awww!” someone cooed quietly in the background—Rangiku, Ichigo noted blearily. “He’s so cute like this!”

The cold hand was moved away from his forehead as another person—Tōshirō, this time—responded. “His temperature is a bit higher than normal, but that is to be expected.”

Ichigo grumbled again before another person contributed to the discussion that was disturbing his silence. “Shu’up,” he mumbled into the fabric and reached out, snatching the cold hand back and refusing to let go. He yawned again after his brief, mangled sentence.

A quiet huff of laughter escaped from someone else as the room fell back into silence.  _ Finally. _ Maybe he could go to sleep now, surrounded by warmth and friends and safety. Plus a nice, cool hand to keep him from overheating.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, his pillow picked him up and readjusted him, sending him back into the half-awake, half-asleep state he was previously in.

“We have to leave,” the man explained when Ichigo growled in discontent, both from the movement and how it caused the hand in his hair to retreat. He refused to let go of the other hand this soon, though. It was comfy,  _ he _ was comfy, and he was beating up the next person to disturb him. “You can go to sleep, you’re safe with us.”

“Though you will have to let go of my hand,” Tōshirō grumbled. Ichigo mumbled incoherently as he squeezed the cold hand tighter, then reluctantly let it go. “... You are safe though, so you can relax.”

Ichigo hummed in response. “Warm ‘n safe, ‘n cold’d be nice too if y’d lemme,” he mumbled the complaint. “‘Roun’ frien’s.” He felt the movement pause for a beat before it continued as they walked, the rocking motion soothing him almost completely to sleep before he decided to continue. “You wake m’gain’, ‘m bitin’ you’n shovin’ y’r Zanpakutō up y’r ass,” he threatened sleepily, punctuated the threat with a yawn as he breathed in the scent of sake, not bothering him in the slightest.

He heard quite a few people choke behind him as well as a few laughs, but he ignored that. His pillow-turned-moving-bed just huffed in amusement and continued carrying him.

Soon, he fell asleep.

(Of course, later he would be mortified about his behavior, apologizing relentlessly to the laidback taichō who he had sleepily threatened. All he got was a laugh as the man easily forgave and then teased him about how he acted, causing the Substitute Shinigami to turn red just like a certain meaning of his name. He also apologized sheepishly to the younger-looking taichō, but was waved off for “not being in his right mind.” All of his other friends didn’t miss the chance to tease him as well, and he blew up in embarrassment and fought with more than several of them.

However, now there was a certain warmth during all of his interactions with them. Usually he would be irritated that they seemingly treated him with more care, as if he was breakable and needed protection… but in truth, he liked it. So if he hugged everyone now occasionally and didn’t argue  _ too _ much when the mother-henning started… well, nobody would blame him, right?

Because they were all his friends, and they made him feel  _ safe. _ )


End file.
